Replacing Catalina 34 Diesel Fuel Tank. part 3

We have our new Tank

Roland from Carr Enterprises called on Monday advising that our tank should be ready on Wednesday Morning, so we booked a hotel in St. Pete FL for Wednesday night - it's a 4.5hour drive from our house.

Tuesday, he called again, confirming it's ready.

We headed out of the house at 8am, stopped to fill up gas and sandwiches then on the road. We arrived at his business address around 2:15. The new tank was waiting on a dolly and sure looked good!

The old tank is bare Aluminum, the new tank is painted with Black Epoxy. The welds on the new tank are really good. The tank was pressure tested to 4psi.

Note the Earthing strap on the aft top end of the new tank is much beefier than the old tank.

Also, the vent outlet on the new tank is a brass elbow fitting compared to the old tank with it's bent vent tube.

Everything about the new tank is an upgrade. Really pleased.

Today I'm going down to the boat and a final cleaning of the Inside of the hull, remove the old fuel hose ( to replace it as the old is probably infected with diesel bug).

I stopped at ACE Hardware and purchased the fittings to connect the new tank to the originals. Basically two 3/8" to 1/4" brass connectors. Took about 10 minutes to find them but all's good, they are ready to install.

I'll be able to install the tank on Monday. WM did not have the new fuel hose in stock, but it is available online. I'll order that 3/8" hose and the new propane connecting hose for the other project in progress right now.

All of the new fittings are installed using PTFE tape.

Right now the tank is ready to install. Not difficult, I anticipate going to the Boat on Monday morning to do the install.

I do want to put a strap to hold the aft end of the tank down to the supporting shelf, the front end has a mounting brace should be easy using a right angled electric screw driver.

About Carr Enterprises

From the outset - I'm not sponsored in any way by Roland or Carr Enterprises - I typically review the companies that I use in regard to projects on Eximius.

We had the option to ship the new tank from St. Petersburg Florida to our home in Margate Florida or drive over there, about a four and half hour drive. Shipping would be cheaper because I'm 76 and did not look forward to driving there and back in one day so the journey had to include an overnight and that was about $300 and we had used up a lot of our travel points during our trip to see our granddaughter's skating event, so this was an actual expense. But it also had the benefit of giving us a date night in St. Pete, worth it!

Ok, back to Carr Enterprises. The business was actually much bigger than I expected. Looking at Google Maps and digging into the location, I thought it was going to be a small Mom-n-Pop business. I got that wrong!  The facade does not give a clue about what is inside. 

They have several machines about this size that can do all sorts of metalwork, mostly on aluminum but also Stainless Steel, our tank was a small job for them. Their welding area can handle it all. 

While Roland gave me the tour, he showed several tanks that were being made for the Coast Guard, they did not have tops on the tanks. Apparently, the CG have to inspect the tanks prior to them being closed up. They pressure test all of the tanks to ensure no leaks - pretty important!

The employees all seemed to be busy and that is a good sign in today's environment.

Roland was really helpful when it came to the design of our tank. I provided the dimensions and he spotted a mistake which I checked and corrected. He also commented on some features such as the Diesel Return tube is best if it runs to the bottom of the tank ( our old tank had no tube in the Diesel Return fitting ) as this would reduce aeration of the fuel, that sounds good to me. Also the grounding wire connections would be more substantial ( our old tank had skinny grounding tabs), again this sounded good. Roland also asked me to confirm the sizes of the hose connections. I did, they were correct and he would ensure the new tank had the same size connections which would ensure we did not have to make any adjustments on the boat.  

Finally, Roland suggested I consider the Black Epoxy coating ( after an acid wash ) for the entire tank. I would like to think that the boat will last for another 38 years then I think the extra tank protection is worth it, even if I would hit the 100 trip around the sun before then. So I went with the Epoxy coating.

The tank is made from 1/8" ( 0.125" ) aluminum.

I'll hold off posting this till the tank is installed. 

The label is on the top of the tank, I'm hoping I never get to see that label again and took the photo just so that I do not have to remove the tank in order to see that label.

One thing that Roland did advise was that the Return hose connection is normally 3/8" ID but Eximius has a 1/4" ID hose connection, and that I would need to get an adaptor. I did, a quick visit to ACE Hardware provided me the exact item. Here it is installed.

The quality of the tank looks to be excellent. Roland did say that he used to make a lot of tanks for Catalina Yachts, but not anymore. We all know why! ( Catalina Yachts is effectively history at this point - but perhaps that will change )

I'm very impressed by the facility and the people that work there. Roland told me that he makes tanks for all types of businesses as well as for the Marine industry. My experience with him and Carr Enterprises has been outstanding.

The tank included a new Fuel Sending unit. I'm not sure if it will calibrate to our existing fuel gauge on the engine control panel, so I'll add the first few gallons of fuel to the new, empty tank, gradually so that we know how many gallons are left in the tank when the gauge stops indicating 'E' ( empty ) and we'll also note the volume of fuel added at each step on the fuel gauge.

One difference that I'm going to implement on the new tank is the provision of a Terminal block for the fuel sender wiring. At present, I have to cut the wiring in order to remove the tank. Again, I hope never to have to remove the tank again, but if I do, then I would rather not cut the wires. So a simple terminal block with ring terminals on each of the two wires will avoid that.

The wiring is simple.

Fuel sender has two wires: Black - Ground and White - Positive for the fuel gauge.

The terminal block is held to the side of the tank by 3M VHB Double sided tape. 

The new hose for the fuel tank to the fuel filter / water separator has not arrived yet. But I was able to complete the wiring for the fuel sender / gauge connection. The Terminal block is mounted to the top of the tank with some 3M VHB double sided tape. Worked great and there is sufficient room above the terminal block to be able to use a stubby screw driver to reach the terminal block connecting screws.

Cross that one off the list.

The new hose should arrive on the 17/18th. Finger crossed they (WM shipper ) don't lose this one too.

Finally got the hose and installed it, well, on the tank end! The hose clamps had not arrived yet. But they did arrive on Sunday, so we're good to go for the final part on Monday.

Attach the new hose with the new hose clamps then start to pour fuel into the tank from 5 gallon cans. I'll put a gallon in then turn on the engine system so that the fuel pump works, we should see fuel enter the bottom of the fuel filter/water separator. Then we'll monitor the fuel gauge as we add more fuel. 

First Fill

New hose clamps installed, check tightened all of the hose fittings.

Turn the engine control system on and heard the fuel pump running. 

Watching the fuel gauge, I poured the first 5 gallons into the tank, the gauge barely moved off of Empty. Added a 2nd 5 gallons, as I poured it in, the fuel gauge moved up to almost the 1/4 Full mark.

While doing this I kept a watch on the water separation cup on the bottom of the Fuel Filter/Water Separation unit = nuttin! Let it run for a few minutes - nuttin! Duh! Turned the fuel cock to on at the top of the new fuel tank. Fuel quickly filled the filter unit.

I let the fuel pump run for 20 minutes, that should be plenty of time to bleed any air out of the fuel system. Next it was time to start the engine. It started 1st time. I let it run for another 20 minutes and it did without any issues. Shut everything down - done for the day. Back tomorrow to work on the Propane system completion.

At this point I feel confident that the updated fuel system is good to go. We'll add more fuel this week and keep track of the fuel level gauge status as we fill it.

NEXT DAY.

While down at the boat today, I ran the engine again for another 30 mins. All's good. Still need to add more fuel but for now I can mark this in the Done Column.

See you on the water. 

Paul